10 May 2011

A Memphis public school, Booker T Washington High, won the Race to the Top, and the president is going to deliver their commencement address.

Obama’s speech marks Booker T. Washington as the winner of the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge. The challenge was an invitation for public high schools to demonstrate how they best prepare students for college and a career and how they are achieving the Obama administration’s education goals.

Among the president’s goals is the U.S. having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.

Booker T. Washington High School’s graduation rate went from 55 percent in 2007 to 81.6 percent in 2010.

Booker T. Washington was the first public high school for black students in Memphis.

got on the 6 train, shouted racial epithets, took his clothes off, attacked some people, and ultimately got taken down by a police officer, who in my opinion too way too long to intervene. NSFW but turn your head sideways watch anyway.

have you heard of him? he's this really good rapper that says really scary / terrible things. his album came out today, and according to his twitter, is currently number three on itunes.

i've given it a couple of listens, and i can't decide if i can take the F-bombs (the homophobic kind) and the rape glorification. throughout the album, he repeatedly ridicules anyone who would take him seriously, stating simply "im not homophobic", and i want to be laidback about it, but i've never really understood the artistic appeal / gain of using the word "faggot". i find myself agreeing with this sentiment:

Tyler's combination of dubious fantasies, anti-gay slurs and emo whining about his upbringing recalls Eminem which doesn't leave much room for shock. In 2011, this feels impotent and tedious. Odd Future's defenders in the media emphasise Tyler's technical skills – and it's true that his gift for assonance and internal rhymes is impressive. But his talent is only half the story: the shtick they use it for is played out. And it undermines the rest of his aesthetic: he demands our empathy at every turn for his own tough life, but is too limited an artist to show empathy for people who, with all due respect, suffer much more on a daily basis than growing up in a single-parent household. Tyler's model of male anger ends up feeling a lot more like male privilege – and as conservative and regressive as that implies. (via)

that "yonkers" video is pretty good, though. do you have any thoughts?

sadly, the preds lost last night and are out of the playoffs. but i did find out about a soon to be tradition: preds fans throwing catfish onto the ice. i love this. it's like the red wings octupus thing, but much more appropriate to tennessee. also, i kicked a catfish once.

here's an update on the long island serial killer. spoiler alert : it's TWO killers! at LEAST!

Long Island residents, already grappling with the notion that a serial killer has been dumping bodies in their midst, got more disturbing news on Monday: a second serial killer may have been at work.

Since April, law enforcement authorities have been trying to determine if four sets of human remains discovered in the thick beachfront brush on Jones Beach Island in Suffolk County were also the work of the killer believed responsible for the deaths of four prostitutes whose remains were found nearby in December close to Gilgo Beach.

But county officials said Monday that the killings involving two of the more recently discovered victims — while unconnected to the first four bodies — “appear to be related to each other.” The officials said one of the recent bodies had been identified as belonging to Jessica Taylor, 20, who had worked as a prostitute in Washington and briefly in New York before disappearing in July 2003.

we also get some gruesome new deets about the latest bodies found:

He said one most likely was of an Asian man in his late teens or early 20s. He appeared to have died a violent death, but the circumstances appeared different from those of the other people whose bodies have been found, Mr. Spota said.
...
“The killer or killers of Jane Doe 6 and Ms. Taylor went to extra lengths in an attempt to prevent the victims from being identified,” Mr. Spota said, alluding to the dismemberments and separate sites for the torso and other parts. “That is clearly not so with any of the other remains that we have found.”
...
Mr. Spota pointed out that Ms. Taylor’s killer had even tried to scrape off a tattoo from her lower back. The tattoo helped the police make their identification of Ms. Taylor about six months after her remains were spotted in Manorville in 2003, according to news accounts. (via)